


Boy Bandit King

by flashrevolver



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Animal Death, Gun Violence, M/M, Rating will change, tags will change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 13:10:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12366495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashrevolver/pseuds/flashrevolver
Summary: A character study of Jesse McCree, in snapshots of his life.





	Boy Bandit King

**Author's Note:**

> CW: animal death
> 
> not beta'd

Jesse was ten years old when his mom caught him playing with his step-dad's rifle. He'd cried and begged her not to tell him, but of course she did, and of course he heard the man yelling before he even saw him enter the room, where Jesse was anxiously waiting on the couch to be reprimanded. 

His step-father wasn't big on grounding or spanking beside the occasional "go to your goddamn room" or jarring slap to the back of the head, but he was always big on reprimanding. On "teaching lessons" as he called it. This didn't mean lectures. He didn't believe in lectures, or getting on a soap box. He believed in real-world lessons. Jesse wouldn't go as far as to say the man wasn't smart, looking back on it. That step-father had been around for 6 months at most, but the lessons he'd taught still stuck to Jesse, right up into his 30s. 

"You see this?" the man had said as the two of them stood in the field behind the back yard. He held the rifle in front of Jesse's face, and Jesse nodded. "What is it?"

"That's a gun, sir," Jesse said. The stench of alcohol was noticeable from where he stood.

"And what do people do with guns, Jesse?"

"They shoot them."

"Wrong."

Jesse was significantly confused but didn't have anything to say. Didn't want to argue. He let his step-father continue.

"They shoot things with them. They shoot animals with them. They shoot people with them."

Jesse nodded.

"You know what happens when you get shot by a gun?"

"You die?"

"You die."

Jesse knew this. He'd seen it in movies and heard people talk about it and he knew this, he wasn't stupid. 

"You know what happens when you die?"

Jesse wasn't sure how to answer this. It seemed like a trick question. The answer seemed so obvious—when you died, you were dead. It was simple. But when he really thought about it, maybe he didn't know.

"I don't know," he said, stumbling over the words nervously.

"Have you ever known somebody who died?"

"No."

"When you die, Jesse, you don't exist. You never wake up, and your body gets put in the ground, and that's it. When you die, dying is the last thing you ever do, for the rest of eternity."

His step-dad had a strange tone—distant but focused. Jesse couldn't even start to process the gravity of these words, even if he felt like he knew what they meant. 

"Why were you playing with my gun like it's a toy?"

Jesse didn't know the answer to that either, anymore, short of "it seemed like a good idea at the time." He shrugged, ashamedly. His step-father stared at him for a second, posture threatening, before letting his shoulders drop and looking out across the vast, dead pasture.

"I used to think guns were toys, too. And you know how I learned that they're not?"

Jesse was silent.

"I figured out first-hand what guns do. I figured out what killing somebo—something—means."

A rabbit darted out of a mesquite bush, and Jesse's skin tried to jump off his muscle. Lily, his mother's Golden Retriever, barked lazily from somewhere behind them. His step-father gave a grim laugh.

"Scared of a goddamn rabbit, but not scared of a gun, huh?"

Jesse's face colored.

"I'm gonna teach you the lesson that I learned when I was your age. If I'd never learned that, Lord knows I'd be a different man."

That didn't sound so bad to Jesse—his step-father being a different man.

"How?" he asked naively. He hadn't caught on. He didn't understand. His step-father seemed caught off guard by Jesse speaking and squinted at him for a minute. 

"Stand here," he said, and walked back to the small enclosed backyard behind the trailer house they were living in. Jesse stood there. The sun was behind the house, and it was hard to see what his step-father was doing, so Jesse put a hand up to his eyes. He watched skeptically as the man grabbed Lily, who had been watching them contently from the porch, roughly by the collar. He set the rifle down on the porch and dragged Lily to her feet, grabbing her chain leash off a hook and latching it to her collar. Jesse picked at his fingernails and squinted against the sun. He turned his head away.

His step-father came through the back gate a few seconds later with Lily's leash in one hand and the rifle in the other. He shoved the gun toward Jesse, and Jesse took it, startled.

"This dog has been alive longer than you have," his step-father said as the dog walked closer to Jesse, sniffing at his boots and pushing her nose against his leg for attention. He was right—Lily was almost thirteen, and Jesse was ten. She'd been around for his entire life.

"You grew up with this dog."

This was true, too. 

"This dog trusts you." 

Lily sunk closer to Jesse as the boy reached a hand down to pet her familiar ears. Her tongue lolled out and she licked his wrist affectionately. 

His step-father yanked her leash back, and walked back about fifteen feet, pulling her with him.

"You remember how to shoot that thing?" he asked, pointing to the rifle. Jesse shook his head.

"It's the switch by your right hand. No, your right hand. Right fucking there, Jesse—" he started to walk over to show him, but Jesse found it.

"That's the safety. Switch that off."

Jesse flicked the switch, revealing a threatening shade of red behind it.

"It's loaded," his step-father said. "Grab the lever and cock it back."

It took a significant amount of effort for Jesse to do it on his own, but he managed. The click made him tremble.

"Point the gun at the dog."

Jesse looked up at his step-father with wide eyes and shook his head before he could stop himself. He saw the man's posture change and immediately stepped back, swallowing all the protests he may have tried to articulate. 

"You do it, or I'll do it and then I'll beat your ass for not listening to me."

Jesse still didn't raise the gun. 

"You don't have a goddamn choice, here, boy," the man raised his voice to shout. If there was one thing he couldn't tolerate it was disobedience. "You listen to me or I'll, I'll take the gun and shoot the dog, and then your fucking mother, and then you."

To this day Jesse couldn't say if any of that was true. 

He raised the gun an inch, hands starting to shake. His vision blurred and he blinked hard to clear the welling tears. 

"Quit your crying and aim the gun."

He brought it up and pointed it at the dog, trying to make himself stop trembling. He squeezed his eyes shut and situated the butt of the gun against his shoulder.

“Pull the trigger, Jesse.”

He did.

A casing hit the ground, Lily yelped, and Jesse dropped the gun instantly. It rattled against the rocks, and Jesse stared at his hands, too afraid to look up. The world slowed, and everything was silent save for the roaring in his ears until he heard his step-father speak.

“You fucking missed.”

Jesse frowned, taking a second to process the words, and then his eyes darted up to meet his stepfather’s, and down to Lily, who was trembling, and obviously shaken by the loud noise, but otherwise unharmed. Jesse stood stock still.

“Go on, pick it back up.”

“Please don't make me,” Jesse whimpered, and felt his lip tremble pathetically.

“Jesse, what did I say? You do it now, and if you backtalk me again I'll make this ten times harder on you.”

His step-father’s voice was harsh and ugly, as it usually was, but with the edge of violence it only got when he was even madder than normal.

Jesse didn't have it in him to argue anymore. His entire body had shaken itself into numbness, and his mind was getting there, too. He just wanted this to be over. Taking a few short breaths in, he bent down and picked up the gun.

It was easier to cock this time, and he forced himself to keep his eyes open as he pointed and shot. He didn't miss.

-

Jesse’s mother occasionally took him on a walk through the thin New Mexico countryside and they called for Lily. She'd been told by her husband that the dog had run off. 

She kept dog food, water, and a blanket on the front porch.


End file.
